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Iran’s president has vowed to “deal decisively” with protests that are gathering momentum across much of the country one week after the death of a woman in custody who had been detained by the morality police.
Demonstrations have spread to most of Iran’s 31 provinces and almost all urban centres, pitting anti-government demonstrators against regime forces, including the military, and posing the most serious test to the hardline state’s authority in more than 13 years.
President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday blamed conspirators for inciting unrest and pledged to crack down on “those who oppose the country’s security and tranquility”. Up to 35 people have been killed during clashes with security forces, according to rights groups outside Iran. Iranian officials say five security personnel have also died, trying to quell outrage surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini, 22.
An enforcer of fundamentalist views throughout his career, Raisi has been regarded as an unlikely figure to quell Iran’s restive streets, or to cede to demands for more civil freedoms. His defiance is likely to increase the likelihood of a further escalation in towns and cities where demonstrators have been increasingly taking the fight to security forces in scenes rarely seen in Iran.
The demonstrations have evoked images of an anti-government protest in 2009, known as the green revolution, that followed contentious presidential elections and marked the last time citizens faced off against security forces on a large scale.
“The main difference between the current protest compared to the green movement in 2009 is that now people are fighting back; they are not afraid of the brutal regime,” said Sima Sabet, an Iranian journalist. “Demonstrators are now burning ambulances because the government is using ambulances to move their security forces not to rescue people. The protesters are now using different tactics; they move between all cities and make it hard for security forces to control all locations.”
Firuzeh Mahmoudi, executive director of human rights NGO United for Iran, said the recent unrest followed months of Iranians being prepared to hold smaller protests on an array of issues: “The uprising in 2009 in some ways was more expansive in certain cities,” she said. “We had millions of people protesting in certain cities during the biggest day of that protest. It was the biggest thing since the [1979] revolution. They did not see it coming and were very surprised.
“Now we’re seeing not only big cities, but smaller cities that we’ve never seen before. We’re now also seeing unprecedented ways in which people are showing up, in the messaging and the boldness. Things are a lot more unified.”
Mahmoudi said chants heard at rallies, such as “We’ll support our sisters and women, life, liberty”, had been heard around the country.
“This is unprecedented for us. We have never seen women take their hijab off in mass like this. Burning down the police centres, running after their cars, burning down the pictures of Khamenei,” she said.
Some demonstrations appear to have at least in part been organised, with a restive urban youth and others opposed to strict societal rules, including on how women conduct themselves, and what they wear, coalescing around the death of Amini, who was accosted by morality police in Tehran for refusing to wear a hijab.
Drawing on lessons learned over the past decade in anti-government uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East, smartphones have been used as organising tools, with messages and places of demonstrations widely circulated, despite widespread cuts to the country’s internet.
“They have tactics about how to send their videos outside of Iran despite the cut-off of the internet,” said Sabet. “For the first time now in Iran women are burning their hijabs with the support of men.”
Substantial numbers of Iranians have long been opposed to unflinching societal rules and the reach of the state’s security forces, which have enforced one of the region’s most formidable theocratic states over more than four decades.
Ramin, 29, a demonstrator from Urmia, north-west Iran, said: “Even the cutting of the internet or significant threats from the regime have not stopped the people from protesting. Moreover, a number of Iranian celebrities in and outside the country have announced their support for the protesters, this includes actors/actresses, athletes, etc. Some female celebrities have removed their hijab.”
As long as the protesters continue to protest on the streets and wear out the security forces, they will sustain and maybe expand the momentum. In at least one small city, Oshnavieh, in north-west Iran, the regime has lost effective control and retreated to the outskirts. Internet provider Starlink has announced that it will activate its satellite so the internet can be accessed inside Iran.
Another demonstrator, Haval 29, said that a state crackdown is starting to be felt on the streets: “Things are not going well, there is violence, there is an army in the city today with civilian outfits. They are shooting people so it’s making it hard for protesters. You cannot go out at night because it’s dangerous.
“Iran doesn’t have enough military forces to stop all these protesters. The police are saying that if this situation continues for more than two to three days, they won’t be able to handle it any more.”
Additional reporting by Nechirvan Mando
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